About Me

I am a married fifty-something Catholic. I volunteer in youth ministry. I live in Hampton Roads. I am a member of a Catholic parish in the Diocese of Richmond. I work in accelerator operations for the U.S. Department of Energy. I am also a sometimes professional writer, mostly of materials for Role Playing Games, especially of the science fiction RPG Traveller.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

English translation of the Mass

I have written on the Mass in Latin before. The keynote address at the Gateway Liturgical Conference, St Louis, Missouri, November 11, 2006, LANGUAGE IN THE ROMAN RITE LITURGY:LATIN AND VERNACULAR has been posted at Adoremus.Generally an illuminating talk, which points out the importance of a new, authentic translation of the Roman Missal. I'm afraid it will take someone of the caliber of St. Jerome to get it right.Of course it will all be for naught if the ordinaries don't ruthlessly enforce it's use, while continuing to clamp down on illicit deviations from the proper forms.The Novus Ordo has a lot going for it. More scripture is read at a N.O. Mass than at a Tridentine Mass, at least on Sundays where an Old Testament reading joins the Epistle and Gospel reading. It includes the Responsorial Psalm, which is an ancient part of the Mass predating the council of Trent and going back as far as 400 A.D. The prayer of the faithful goes back just as far in Church history.But all of these restorations are meaningless if the priest fails to follow the prayers and rubrics of the Mass as laid down in the Missale Romanum. If we as Catholics want to preserve the beauty, reverence and sanctity of the Novus Ordo, whether it is said in Latin, the vernacular or a combination of both, we must urge the ordinary responsible for enforcing the proper celebration of the Mass, our local bishop, to live up to his responsibilities.